N.Y.C. Administrators' Contract Lacks Major Changes

For months, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has said he wants to
steer more of New York City's best principals to its lowest-performing
schools. His remarks have fueled speculation that contract talks with
administrators might yield changes in the way the system deploys its
school leaders.

Not this time around, it seems.

Officials of the union that represents principals and other
educational administrators in New York say they've reached a tentative
agreement with city negotiators on a contract that includes no new
provisions aimed at moving principals around within the 1.1
million-student district.

Members of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators have
until May 8 to vote on the deal, which calls for an 8 percent wage hike
over 27 months.

Jill S. Levy, the president of the union, said it wasn't the right time
for administrators to accept major changes in work rules. She points
out that the current contract expired two years ago. Also, since the
agreement now being voted on would be retroactive to April 2001, it
would itself expire at the end of this school year.

After that, new talks could begin—although, according to the
practice in the city, not until a new contract with the United
Federation of Teachers is negotiated.

"After this is implemented," Ms. Levy said of the administrators'
new contract, "then maybe we can have some serious conversation about
what life should look like for principals and other people in the
system."

A spokesman for the chancellor's office said last week that
officials there would not comment on the ongoing collective bargaining
process. But it's no secret that Mr. Klein considers strengthening
school leadership a hallmark of his improvement strategy for the
nation's largest school system.

In a series of proposals unveiled in December, the chancellor
suggested paying $25,000 annual bonuses to experienced principals who
agreed to spend three years helping to turn around low-performing
schools. The plan was for participants in the bonus program to mentor
aspiring principals who would take over the schools after the third
year. ("N.Y.C. Chancellor Aims
to Bolster Instructional Leadership," Jan. 8, 2003.)

Power Struggles

According to the CSA, however, the idea bogged down in the recent
contract talks over whether the bonus money would be "pensionable."
Union leaders say negotiators for the district balked at their
contention that the stipends should figure into the income that
determines the size of administrators' retirement benefits.

Ms. Levy said her group also rebuffed attempts to give the
chancellor new authority to transfer principals between schools.
Currently, principals are hired through a process in which committees
of educators and parents at schools screen candidates for the
positions.

Colman Genn, a former superintendent in the city's Queens borough,
said he wasn't surprised that such changes didn't make it into the new
labor agreement. But he hopes similar proposals are able to survive the
next round of negotiations.

"Right now, it's like an industry that can't move its people where
they're needed," said Mr. Genn, who is now a senior fellow at the
Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association, a local
nonprofit group.

News of the tentative administrators' contract comes amid
intensifying debate over the education policy changes undertaken in New
York since last spring, when state lawmakers gave Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg control of the city's school system.

At a hearing last week, legislators grilled one of Mr. Bloomberg's
deputies and Mr. Klein—who is the mayor's handpicked schools
chief—over plans to reorganize the city's 32 community school
districts into 10 regions that report more directly to the chancellor's
office. Key members of the state legislature argue that the mayor lacks
the legal authority to make such changes.

In at least one respect, though, the labor agreement now before the
city's administrators would further Mr. Klein's objective of improving
the system's corps of principals. Along with the 8 percent raise, the
contract calls for additional increases for assistant principals to
ensure that they're paid more than senior teachers, which is not always
the case now.

The change is aimed creating more incentive for educators in the
system to move into administration. Predicts Ms. Levy: "I think we are
going to have more teachers who have greater experience apply for
assistant principalships."

Vol. 22, Issue 33, Page 5

Published in Print: April 30, 2003, as N.Y.C. Administrators' Contract Lacks Major Changes

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